
Blue is the Warmest Color (France/Belgium/Spain: Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013: 179 mins)
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex (1949: PDF copy)
Bell, Nicholas. "Blue is the Color of My True Love’s Hair: Kechiche Takes Us Deep Sea, Baby." Ion Cinema (October 25, 2013)
Berger, John. The Ways of Seeing. (1972: Summary/outline of this important book that studied how we are position to observe people and objects in art)
Blue is the Warmest Color Critic's Roundup (No Date)
Blue is the Warmest Color (Graphic Novel) Wikipedia (No Date)
Dargis, Manohla. "Seeing You Seeing Me: The Trouble With Blue Is the Warmest Color." The New York Times (October 27, 2013)
Dayoub, Tony. "The 51st New York Film Festival #3." The Cinephiliacs (October 13, 2013)
Hudson, David. "Abdellatif Kechiche’s BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR: A coy coming-out drama this most definitely isn’t.” Keyframe (May 23, 2013)
---. "Abdellatif Kechiche’s BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR: 'The experience of the film transcends flaws both real and imagined.'" Keyframe (October 11, 2013)
Ildari, Max. "Blue Is the Warmest Color 2: A Response to Lorrie Moore’s Review in the New York Review of Books." Bright Lights After Dark (January 10, 2014)
Jones, Kristin M. ""Review: Blue Is the Warmest Color." Film Comment (2013)
Kennedy, A.L. "Sartre and the Individual." A History of Ideas (April 15, 2015) ["Writer AL Kennedy on Existentialist ideas about the individual. Jean Paul Sartre argued that, for humans, 'existence preceded essence'. This means that there is no blueprint or template from which to work - humans are free to make themselves up as they go along. Being an individual comes from the way you negotiate this freedom and the choices you make in the face of it."]
Lee, Janet. "'Blue Is The Warmest Color'." Neon Tommy (October 22, 2013)
Mayer, Sophie. "Blue is the Warmest Colour: This part-adaptation of Julie Maroh’s graphic-novel saga of a lesbian love affair trades a new voice for the same old male gaze." Sight and Sound (February 20, 2015)
McCahill, Mike. "21st Century Directors You Need to Know About: Abdellatif Kechiche." Movie Mail (May 2, 2014)
McNeil, Jeremiah. "Blue is the Warmest Color" Dialogic Cinephilia (December 21, 2013)
Moore, Lorrie. "Gazing at Love: Blue is the Warmest Color." The New York Review of Books (December 19, 2013)
Rich, B. Ruby. "Blue Is the Warmest Color: Feeling Blue." The Current (February 24, 2014)
Roberts, Soraya. "Blue Is the Warmest Color is about class, not just sex." Salon (November 3, 2013) ["Sex and sexuality are only half the film's story. It's also about lovers from different economic worlds."]
Sartre, Jean-Paul. "Existentialism is a Humanism." (Lecture given in 1946: published in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman, Meridian Publishing Company, 1989) Marxist Archive (2005)
Stern, Marlowe. "‘Blue is the Warmest Color’: See What the Sex Scene Looks Like In the Graphic Novel." The Daily Beast (October 28, 2013)
Thompson, Martha. "Blue Is the Warmest Color 1: Unresolved Alienations of Class." Bright Lights After Dark (January 2014)
Zaman, Farihah. "The Pleasure Principle: Blue is the Warmest Color." Reverse Shot #33 (2013)




Black Widow is the first hero seen in The Avengers, the latest entry in Joss Whedon's career-long feminist project. She does not immediately display the super powers enjoyed by the other Avengers—Captain America’s unnatural super-strength, The Hulk gamma-ray rage giant, Iron Man’s wearable rock ‘em, sock ‘em robot suit, or Thor’s hammer of the demi-gods. The only visibly super things about Black Widow are the latest in cat suit couture and a striking asymmetrical crimson bob. And yet she’s still able to trash a clutch of Russian scumbags with her hands tied behind her back. With a chair tied to her rear. While talking on her cell phone.
She’s also the sole Avenger that S.H.I.E.L.D. leader Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) trusts to convince Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to join Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), and Captain America (Chris Evans) in the fight against Thor’s psychotic brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who, having stolen the ultimate source of power in the universe, the Tesseract, plans to use an alien army to devastate the Earth. (The plot ends there.)
As egos collide, Black Widow—street name, Natasha Romanova—is the only character who does not throw a monstrous hissyfit. The only character to gather actionable intelligence against Loki from Loki. The character who not only literally kicks sense back into the brainwashed Hawkeye, but then absolves him of any sins performed while under the loony god’s spell.
You want fearless? When midtown Manhattan is swarming with thousands of robo-aliens, the dreaded Chitauri, Black Widow commandeers one of their slippery aero-sleds and flies it to steal Loki’s glowing phallic scimitar so as to save the world so Iron Man can blow up the aliens.
Oh—and the Tesseract? It’s female. I know this because everyone calls it by female pronouns—respectfully. How does that work? Well, the way all Whedon works: second viewings reveal not only layer after layer of multiple meanings, jokes piled on jokes, but seemingly random elements that are actual thematic glue. Nothing is never there without a reason.
Anyway, Black Widow! A worthy addition to Whedon’s female action bloodline, right? The flame-haired heir to Buffy, Faith, Kendra, River, Echo, Zoe, Fred, and Illyria, right?
No.